I decided to start a series of posts that are basically reference posts. A reference post is something that you’ll refer back to over and over again until you commit it to memory. I’m starting this off with the Circle of Fifths. This diagram has a number of uses which I’m not going to go into at the moment but in time we’ll cover everything we can about it. For now I’m just going to put the graphic up and say that you REALLY should memorize this thing. Very briefly, when you start at a key (C in this graphic), when you go around clockwise you are stepping up a 5th. When you go counter-clockwise, you going down a 5th. So for C, the 5th is F and the 4th is G. Now you know the I-IV-V of a key. If you have this memorized you won’t have to work this out on your fingers. In addition, you can figure out every note in the key as outlined in the green area of the graphic for the key of C. Anyway, more to come on the great tool.

Here’s a quick interpretation for you on what the green zone means. See the table below…